SHARE MTB Club at the OC Parks 2017 Whiting Ranch Poker Ride

The SHARE Mountain Bike Club participated in the 2017 Orange County Parks Whiting Ranch Poker Ride by acting as the coordinator for the volunteers for the event. The Poker Ride is an annual event that encourages mountain bike riders of all levels to come out and ride a preset course of trails, while navigating their way through checkpoints along the way. After hitting all of the checkpoints, riders are then dealt a poker hand – the strength of the poker hand determines eligibility for the amazing prizes that were donated by a variety of sponsors of the race.

SHARE had a great turnout of volunteers to help with the event. These volunteers worked with Adam Martinez, the Whiting Ranch Park Ranger in charge of the event, additional park rangers, and other key safety personnel from the local community to ensure that the event ran smoothly by assisting the riders at various stages of the ride. The volunteer assignments included parking lot management, registration, checkpoint positions, sweepers to go behind and check on the riders, and post-ride poker hand tally experts. The day of the event was very hot, so the volunteers also made sure that the riders had plenty to drink along the trail – extra thanks goes out to everyone for keeping all of the riders hydrated and safe.

The ride ended at the staging area in the Glenn Ranch parking lot of Whiting Ranch Park. There were many vendor booths representing mountain bike clubs, US Forest Service volunteers, bike shops, and the El Modena and Foothill High School mountain bike race teams (who also helped as volunteers). After the riders got something to eat from either the OC Parks hot dog cart or the taco truck, the prize winners were announced and many raffle prizes were given out to the riders